Monday, 30 April 2012

This month, despite the pouring rain that never stopped, I only managed 22 films. Here is the bottom 11. Please check back tomorrow for the top 11 featuring classics with strangely similar titles such as The Vanishing,Vanishing Point, A Night to Remember and Night of the Hunter. And then there's the new films including 21 Jump Street, Tomboy and Cabin in the Woods. But what will take the top spot? Come back tomorrow to find out!

22. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (Troy Nixey, 2011)

...or this movie. Actually no do be afraid. Be afraid that you have just lost a precious
piece of your life sitting through it.
It’s ok really. Just a bit
dependent on little CGI monsters that aren’t scary. And Katie Holmes. No offence but how does she keep getting work?

21. Apollo 18 (Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, 2011)

Found footage from space. Whenever a franchise or trend gets tired,
they make the next instalment in space.
Jason X was ridiculous fun. This
is a bit too serious for its own good.
Not the worst ‘found footage’ horror ever made but still not that good.

20. Episode 50 (Joe Smalley, Tess Smalley,
2011)

Another found footage horror. Not great but like most of them, it has a
couple of pretty scary moments. Looks
like this and the recent Grave Encounters
are very similar. TV crews in an abandoned hospital full of spooks and the cameras keep rolling to capture all the fun.

19. Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence (Tom Six,
2011)

Sick Six Sucks. But you might admire the director for
taking horror to extremes. If you want
to watch sick stuff, this film really pushes the boundaries of taste. If you know the idea, you’ll be pleased or
disturbed to know that this time there are laxatives involved. Lots of laxatives. Truly and unbelievably sick stuff. And this is the cut version fortunately. Thank you BBFC.

18. Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989)

Found this quote from IMDb: ‘Field of Dreams
is one of the strangest films I've seen, and possibly one of the best. When it
throws its subject matter at you, you wonder how a story so preposterous can
ever work’ No I don’t. It didn’t. Preposterous, overly sentimental and
weird. Not quite sure what the fuss is
about.

17. Semi-Pro (Kent Alterman, 2008)

The weakest of Will Ferrell’s sports
movies. Then again I haven’t seen Kicking and Screaming yet. Hoping to right an article about Ferrell's sports movies and their representation of masculinity.

16. Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2007)

Flawed but fun. Timberlake lip syncing to The Killers is the
stand out scene but The Rock also delivers a funny performance throughout. Great music and some stunning visuals but
neither can hide the films obvious messiness.

15. Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)

Great dancing but deeply disturbing raping. Despite the still hugely impressive dance
scenes and the social realist vibe, the scene where a girl gets raped but then
totally forgotten about as the action moves to bridge stumbling antics reeks of
misogyny. Yes the film is about certain
attitudes held by many members of society and does tackle this with the father
telling the son washing up is ‘women’s work’ but then this rape scene comes
along and is almost completely forgotten about moments later. It felt ridiculous that the girl in question
would stick with these guys after being mistreated so badly. Left a bad taste in my mouth.

14. Weekend (Andrew Haigh, 2011)

Graphic gay romance. I might be being a prude as I’ve not seen a
lot of gay sex in films before but this film delved deep into two interesting
characters before delving deep into their sexual activities. It’s sweet and engaging but nothing too
special. A very real modern romance.

13. Martin (George A. Romero, 1976)

The magic of vampires takes a stake to the
heart in Romero’s realist take on the monsters.
It is dated but still an original and interesting take on the vampire.

Thursday, 26 April 2012

A sequel to Top Gun? A remake and a sequel of Child's Play? Today is my lucky day.

Completely hetrosexual

No I'm not making it up. Over 25 years after the original gave us an awesome soundtrack, topless men all greased up and playing volleyball on the beach to a song called 'Playing with the Boys', Tom Cruise riding a motorbike and flying the crap out of super speedy jets, fretting about his Dad, shagging Kelly McGillis in an impossibly blue, slow and sexy, sex scene, Goose getting an all time great death and some karaoke lovin' feelin losin comes this news:

Well...

'in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount executive Adam Goodman has confirmed that Top Gun 2 is in pre-production' http://entertainment.stv.tv/film/304999-tom-cruise-gets-jet-set-for-top-gun-sequel-as-pre-production-confirmed/

Well it's about time. The US Navy needs another big, dumb, cinematic recruitment advert. Hmmm. Shame Tony Scott's back. I wish he could dial back that attention deficit editing. The writer of Bad Boys 2 is involved which suggests extremely dumb but fun action scenes that will... wait for it... TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY! I hope Val Kilmer can make an appearance. And the ghost of Goose. Heck why not?

Wanna play?

Then I hear (two weeks after the news breaks but better late than never) Chucky from Child's Play is going to be back! Now if this was just another sequel I would be concerned after the attempted horror comedies of Bride and Seed of Chucky. But I still hold the original Child's Play trilogy in high regard. I loved those movies as a kid so it pleases me to hear:

'original creators Don Mancini and David Kirschner are cooking up a
remake that will stray from the more satiric leanings of recent sequels -
the last one featured John Waters, after all – and go for "a darker and scarier retelling of the original film, but one that will offer new twists and turns."'
http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/chucky-childs-play-remake-sequel/

Still terrifying?

However then I read over at Total Film:

'This new episode in the long-running franchise will be titled Revenge Of Chucky, and will again focus on the killer doll's immediate family, in a similar vein to Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky.

As
for the remake, Dourif indicated that original writer Don Mancini is
still working on script, with the theme thought to be a lot lighter and
comedic than the original.'
http://www.totalfilm.com/news/childs-play-remake-and-sequel-on-the-way

Well I hope they're wrong about the remake. I want to see Child's Play back to it's dark roots. I know it seems silly and ripe for comedic treatment but to me Chucky is still a little psycho and a terrifying alternative to Woody and Buzz coming alive when you're not watching.

What do you think readers? Does this news spell the end of the world or are you as excited as I am?

Over
the next few weeks, I will be putting up case studies of Hollywood,
Independent and British films to help my A level Film Studies students
learn more about the finance, organisation, production, distribution and
exhibition of different types of films. These case studies can be used
in their exam when discussing the American and British film industries. This is the third. The first on Prometheus is here and the second on Attack the Block is here.

The script was also written by a first-timer, Diablo Cody. ‘Before her screenwriting debut Juno received a rapturous
standing ovation at this year's Toronto Film Festival, before Steven Spielberg
called... Diablo Cody was giving halfhearted lap dances to greasy men at a
Minneapolis strip club’ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20157948,00.html

‘When Jason Reitman, who'd made a name for himself with 2006's Thank You for Smoking, read the
script for Juno, he scrapped
plans to direct his own project to work with Cody instead. ''When I think of
the response to Diablo and her screenplay,'' he says, ''the only person I can
equate it to in recent history is Tarantino, that kind of overwhelming
excitement about a fresh new voice.''’ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20157948_2,00.html

Independent film is where a huge amount of talent gets its big
break. Both Reitman and Cody have gone
on to more commercial and bigger films since Juno, working with the likes of Clooney in Up in the Air and Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried in Jennifer’s Body. Only after Reitman’s first film was a
success, did he get the job of directing this feature. However there were still problems with
funding.

Finance:

Budget: $7.5 million

‘There are a variety of methods and many different levels of
independent film financing that can range from multi-million dollar backing
from major studios right down to personal savings and credit cards of one
individual’ http://www.makeindependentfilms.com/financing.htm

During promotion for the film, the actress playing Juno, Ellen Page, said ‘I read the script a couple
years ago -- it was one of those things that takes time [to get off the ground]
-- and I fell in love then, but it kind of just dwindled away, didn't have
money, so on and so forth. And then it came back around again, and I got
excited all over again’ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/juno/news/1694026/ellen_page_on_juno_the_rt_interview/

‘the kind of movie Cody wanted to see initially scared off every
major studio. ''A lot of people were worried that we would be protested by
right-to-lifers or pro-choice people,'' says producer Lianne Halfon of an early
incarnation of the project, which was ushered by her company Mr. Mudd... Even after Fox Searchlight
greenlit the film, expectations were modest. ''We thought it was going to be a
smaller movie because of the subject matter,'' says studio COO Nancy Utley’ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20175163_3,00.html

Mandate Pictures ‘has
established itself as a premier independent entertainment company renowned
for its exceptional support of filmmakers and the creative process,
innovative partnerships with Hollywood's top creative talent, and keen
ability to build a successful business model for films in a wide variety
of genres’ http://www.mandatepictures.com/CoporateOverview.aspx

Mr. Mudd ‘Producing
partners Lianne Halfon, John Malkovich and Russell Smith... created the
production company Mr. Mudd, whose first film was the notable Ghost World,
directed by Terry Zwigoff’ http://www.mrmudd.com/about/

The involvement of Fox Searchlight demonstrates the modern trend
of independent films being made by subsidiaries of the major Hollywood
studios. They take on more challenging
and often more complex material but still desire to make profitable films and
therefore hope for some mainstream success.
Juno, like so many other
modern ‘independent’ films is actually not independent from the major studios
and is therefore more independent in terms of its script, characters and story. A film about a subject like teenage pregnancy
is a concern for investors and so funding was hard to come by and expectations
for the box office figures are kept low to ensure the film will be profitable.

Organisation:

‘As early as 1992, Hollywood majors were recognising that
in order to capitalise on the potential mainstream success of independent films
they needed not only to continue winning the distribution rights to unexpected,
alternatively financed hits, but actively
seek out the important directors with whom to collaborate. Sony Classics,
Paramount Classics and Fox Searchlight were thus created by their respective,
internationally co-owned, parent companies to deal with requests for funds. The
result of such diversification was that, by
the late-1990s, those 'independent' films and film producers winning plaudits
were in fact conventionally financed, mainstream pictures; Boys Don't Cry
and Election being funded and distributed by multinationals News
Corporation and Viacom, with Miramax now a 'major independent' attached to
the transglobal Disney corporation. With this, the criteria by which art-house
films were marketed and exploited was also fundamentally changed. Higher budgets, increased advertising and
wider platform releases all brought the 'independent' sector closer to the high
stakes movie-making of the commercial cinema than ever before’ http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue6/americancinema.html

‘Today, every
major film studio has specialty departments designed to create offbeat, smart
contenders for the awards. They typically are films with modest budgets
(usually less than $50 million) and limited promotion — at least initially.

These quotes
highlight the studios’ dominating of the independent sector in recent
years. They use their subsidiaries such
as Fox Searchlight to make smaller films that can make big money thanks to
festivals, competitions and awards.

Independent films typically have short shooting schedules and do
not use the latest and most expensive technology such as CGI, Imax and 3D. They do often feature stars but these stars
often take pay cuts to appear in what they think will be critically adored and
popular films. It is shot on locations rather
than in expensive studios with built sets.

Stars:

‘Ellen Page starred in the controversial film "Hard
Candy" and appeared in "X-Men: The Last Stand". "Juno"
is a reunion of sorts for Jason Bateman and Michael Cera, who both starred in
the acclaimed Fox comedy "Arrested Development." Jennifer Garner
starred on ABC's "Alias" and is known for such films as "13
Going on 30." Olivia Thirlby recently starred in David Gordon Green's
Sundance hit "Snow Angels." JK Simmons played Nick Naylor's boss in
Reitman's hit "Thank You for Smoking." Allison Janney starred on
NBC's "The West Wing" and will soon be seen in the upcoming movie
musical "Hairspray." Rainn Wilson plays Dwight on the NBC hit series
"The Office."’ http://www.jeremywalker.com/pages/films/film_juno.htm#

Lots of the stars here are famous from television and less so from
feature films. This can be typical of
independent films that often do not have the budgets to afford the biggest
stars. However the stars they do get
will help the film to cross over into the mainstream and be a draw for
audiences to see the film.

‘The best movie
of 2007 is coming to theatres 9 days earlier than expected. The film, Juno, directed by Jason Reitman
was originally scheduled to hit theatres on December 15th, but has been moved
up to take advantage of all the
incredible advance buzz. Juno will
now hit theatres on Wednesday, December 5th in New York and Los Angeles, and
will expand on a platform release in
the subsequent weeks’ http://www.slashfilm.com/junos-due-date-sooner-than-expected/

‘"Juno"
will open in an additional 13 cities on Friday, upping the total theatre count
to about 40. Another 17 cities will be added on Dec. 21, and the film will
further expand on Christmas Day before going nationwide Jan. 4’ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117977409?refCatId=13

Distribution for this film is
very different to most Hollywood blockbusters.
The film starts out at festivals and on a limited number of
screens. As buzz builds and word of
mouth spreads, the film gets a wider release.
It is also released at a time when it is likely to get attention in the
awards season. The marketing is quirkier
and less traditional than Hollywood blockbusters. Note also that the posters and trailers emphasise
the critical response to the film and the awards it has won.

Exhibition:

‘There are numerous reasons why indie films have small success.
One of which is the number of screens
they are released on. A typical studio wide release is 3000 plus screens. The
Dark Knight was released on 4366 screens1. Most indie films are released with very small screen counts; many
times only on 3 to 5 and sometimes a couple of hundred. If an indie gets a wide
release it is usually because it already has some buzz. For instance Hostel 2 opened on 2350 screens but it
was a sequel to a film that was a huge success’ http://voices.yahoo.com/analysis-2007-independent-film-box-office-numbers-1848390.html

‘In 2006 Little Miss
Sunshine was opened on 7 screens in late July. Within 2 weeks it was
expanded to 58 screens. Toward the end of August it began to get Oscar buzz and was expanded to 1602
screens. Of course Little Miss Sunshine went on to win 2 Oscars which helped
its theatrical run that ended in March 2007. Although it is not typical for a small indie film ($8M
budget) to do this well ($100M+ worldwide gross) it does happen using the
slow release’ http://voices.yahoo.com/analysis-2007-independent-film-box-office-numbers-1848390.html

‘"Juno," playing in seven theaters in Los Angeles and Gotham,
scored a boffo per-screen average of $60,016, one of the best on record for
that number of theaters and outperforming the openings of previous Searchlight
hits "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Sideways."’ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117977409?refCatId=13

‘Fox Searchlight... recently made the decision to start rolling
Reitman’s film out on December 14 — which, as screenwriter Diablo Cody ... says
on her blog,
"is not a messin’-around release date. It’s kind of a scary release date.
It’s a we-believe-in-you release date”... The studio’s optimistic judgment call
on that release date may not represent a sure Oscar-bait belief so much as an
"everybody in the family over 15 will have a good time and go home hating
each other less at Christmastime" kind of thing’ http://popwatch.ew.com/2007/09/04/telluride-day-4/

‘Juno has become a massive crossover
hit, sailing past $100 million and landing Academy Award nominations for Best
Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The Best
Picture race may include such high-pedigree contenders as There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, and Atonement, but little $6.5
million Juno has surpassed
them all’ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20175163,00.html

Juno has been incredibly successful for an independent film. This is due to a clever script and great
characters but also due to a clever distribution plan that has seen it embraced by a mainstream audience.

That's Juno in a nutshell and also hopefully a bit of insight into the state of modern American independent film.

Monday, 23 April 2012

Over
the next few weeks, I will be putting up case studies of Hollywood,
Independent and British films to help my A level Film Studies students
learn more about the finance, organisation, production, distribution and
exhibition of different types of films. These case studies can be used
in their exam when discussing the American and British film industries. This is the second. The first on Prometheus is here.

Director:

Joe
Cornish ‘first appeared on British TV screens in 1997 as co-star and co-creator
of 'The Adam and Joe Show', a home-made comedy show famous for its sketches,
songs and animations satirizing pop culture... Cornish has also
directed the two Channel 4 comedy pilots 'Modern Toss' and 'Blunder', both of
which were commissioned as series, as well as an intimate documentary on the
making of the hit BBC comedy show 'Little Britain'. http://www.film4.com/features/article/attack-the-block

Though this
is a British film with a relatively small budget compared to Hollywood
blockbusters, Attack the Block still
has a high budget for a British film.Investors would normally be reluctant to give first time filmmakers £13
million to make a British film with a cast of mostly unknowns, set in a tower
block and featuring characters that open the movie mugging an innocent nurse.

However Joe
Cornish has had a great deal of experience in television and has developed a
strong following with his radio and television shows.He is also co-writing Spielberg’s latest film
with Edgar Wright who recently had a huge international hit with Shaun of the Dead.Like that film, Attack the Block takes very English characters, stars and settings
and mixes them with a popular genre.So the science fiction element could help to
draw in bigger crowds and therefore make investors feel more comfortable
putting in £13 million.Also casting Nick Frost might draw in
international fans of Shaun of the
Dead, helping Attack the Block
sell worldwide.

Studio
Canal ‘is
the pan European film, production and sales distribution arm of French media
group, Canal+. The UK arm, formerly known as Optimum Releasing, has established
a reputation for an innovative approach to distribution and has enjoyed success
with a varied mix of film titles across all genres... 2011 has seen the company
enjoy its biggest ever box office returns in the UK with successes… Duncan
Jones’ Source Code’ http://www.studiocanal.co.uk/Home/AboutUs

Film4 ‘is Channel 4 Television’s
feature film division. Film4 develops and co-finances films and is known for
working with the most innovative talent in the UK, whether new or established.
Film4 has developed and co-financed many of the best UK films of recent years,
films like Slumdog Millionaire… Hunger… Nowhere Boy and Four Lions’ http://www.film4.com/features/article/company-credits-attack-the-block

‘Since its
creation in 2000 the UK Film Council
has backed more than 900 films, shorts and features, which have won over 300
awards and entertained more than 200 million people around the world generating
£5 for every £1 of Lottery money it has invested.

Big Talk
Productions‘is a
multi-award winning Film and TV Production Company… Its credits include Spaced,
Black Books… and the hit movies Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, as well as
last year’s critically acclaimed Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

In October
2007 Big Talk's film arm, Big Talk Pictures completed a slate development
deal jointly funded by Film 4 and UK Film Council under which it
developed Attack The Block, and in September 2009 the company completed a first
look financing and distribution deal with Optimum/Studio Canal to continue
to expand its film ambitions.

No
funding from the Hollywood studios but mostly financed by British companies and
the UK Film Council which is a
funding body set up to help produce films that promote British culture and tell
British stories.Interestingly two of these companies are very involved in
television which suggests Joe Cornish is likely to have had a working
relationship with them before shooting his first feature film.

Production:

‘Attack The Block takes place in Wyndham
House in South London, but there's no point trying to find it on Google Maps.
It doesn't exist. Instead, it's a composite of a number of London locations – a
bit of Islington here, and a lot of the Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle
there. Heygate has been seen in the likes of Hereafter and Harry Brown and gave
director Joe Cornish exactly what he was looking for’ http://www.film4.com/features/article/location-attack-the-block

Shooting on location
adds to the realism of this British film that makes it stand out from much of
Hollywood’s science fiction output.It
also will save the producers money as less sets have to be built.

‘ATTACK THE BLOCK started filming in
March 2010, for eleven weeks. Six of those were on location... “The technique we used is quite old-school,” Cornish
concedes. “I didn’t want to do CGI creatures because a) we couldn’t afford them
and b) I wanted there to be something in front of the camera. I’m fed up with
the aesthetics of CGI creatures”’ Production notes

‘ATTACK THE BLOCK’s Visual Effects Supervisor Ged Wright received
an Oscar nomination this year for his work on Iron Man 2.’ Production notes

Cornish: ‘I knew they [the aliens] had to be
practical. I knew we couldn’t afford CGI
creatures. And I wanted them to be practical, because I love the practical
work in movies that I saw when I was growing up. I wanted to use some digital,
but with a lightness of touch. I always feel digital is best used to enhance
what’s already present, than to create it from the ground up... They
designed this terrific costume-suit, and then we shot that, and then there’s a
little bit of enhancement by a company called Digital Negative, and a very
brilliant European company called Fido. So the
end result is a combination of practical, with a little bit of digital’http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/880199/joe_cornish_interview_attack_the_block_monster_design_and_british_scifi_on_a_budget.html

‘Frost first came to prominence as the gun-mad
character Mike Watt in Channel 4’s Spaced.
Since then, Frost has become one of the U.K.’s most sought-after actors.
He earned a nomination for Most Promising Newcomer by the British Independent
Film Awards for his role in the cult zombie movie Shaun of the Dead,starring
opposite Simon Pegg.Frost
again starred with Pegg in the hugely successful hit comedy Hot Fuzz. Frost’s other film credits
include Kinky Boots, Penelope, Wild Child and The Boat That
Rocked’ Production notes

The
use of unknowns is risky for
investors, meaning the budget has to be little compared to international star
filled Hollywood blockbusters.However,
there is also more realism if unknown actors are used and many horror films do
not have stars in order to make it less obvious who will survive and who will
die.The inclusion of Nick Frost does help the film and he
was featured prominently in much of the
marketing.The supporting cast of
Jodie Whittaker and Luke Treadaway may also be known to British audiences as
they have appeared in plenty of television and theatre work.

Ratings and classification:

Attack the Block
is rated 15 in the UK.As it has a much
lower budget than a Hollywood blockbuster such as Prometheus, it can afford to
have a higher rating.It does not have
to convince families and younger audience members to come and see it as it does
not have to make such a huge amount of money to be profitable.In fact, as it is a horror/science fiction,
it might make it more appealing to the target audience if they know it is going
to be more ‘adult’.

‘The marketing of the film is
interesting, attempting to push the film onto a real cross-section of
audiences. Produced by Nira
Park, Britain’s go-to producer of ‘indie’ comedies with appeal across the
pond (Shaun of the Dead [2004], Paul [2011]), the film also
strives to appeal to a Kidulthood
(2006) youth market, including the working class teenagers which are its focus’
http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/?2011,5,295

Nick
Frost, the science fiction genre elements and ‘from the producers of Shaun of
the Dead’ are all highlighted in much of the marketing.But the distinctive British location, language and characters are also
emphasised. Film festivals are often essential for spreading word of mouth about smaller films. They can win competitions, awards and gain valuable attention from film fans and the press.

Opening
weekend figures were very low compared to Hollywood blockbusters.It was also released on far fewer screens
than a Hollywood blockbuster would be.The distributors will hope for the release to go wider as word of mouth
spreads as they will not spend as much on marketing as the biggest blockbusters
do.

A great deal of the reviews and interviews highlighted the films debt to American genre films. This would no doubt help the film to appeal to international audiences who are fans of Hollywood blockbusters.

And that's Attack the Block in a nutshell. I hope you enjoyed it and find it useful.